A surface acoustic wave device including a LiTaO.sub.3 substrate, and an interdigital transducer is provided on the LiTaO.sub.3 substrate. The interdigital transducer includes as a major component at least one of Au, Ag, Ta, Mo, Cu, Ni, Cr, Zn, and W, and the interdigital transducer has a normalized film thickness H/.lamda. of approximately 0.05 or less so as to excite a shear horizontal wave.